MTV taps Katy Perry to host VMAs

Singer Katy Perry performs to conclude the ‘Katy Perry – Witness World Wide’, an exclusive 4-day, 96-hour, livestream in partnership with YouTube, on June 12, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. AFP

NEW YORK—Katy Perry will host this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, the network announced Thursday, as it turned to one of pop music’s most visible stars for its big gala.

Perry was also the first performer announced for the awards, which will be aired globally from Los Angeles on August 27.

MTV broke the news by posting a picture of the newly blonde singer clad as an astronaut — a nod to the awards’ “Moonman” statuette and the network’s early commercials.

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In a statement, Perry joked that she had started “training in zero gravity.”

MTV has experimented with different host formats for the annual party, which are generally better remembered for attention-grabbing on-stage incidents than for the award winners.

Miley Cyrus hosted the event two years ago, but in 2016, MTV decided to have multiple presenters throughout the night rather than a single host.

Perry, the only person with more than 100 million followers on Twitter, is up for five VMAs this year for “Chained to the Rhythm,” her disco-inspired track whose video presents a sci-fi amusement park fantasy.

The 32-year-old has three videos that have reached one billion views on YouTube, led by “Roar.”